Ultimaker S3 Resuming After Power Outage?

[donogh 2]

I had the impression that the S3 was able to resume after a power outage. We don’t normally have power issues but our fuse board is acting up over the past few days.

 

So far it’s happened three times in the middle of printing, and every time it’s come back on it thinks the print is finished. 

 

Anything that can be done, please, aside from buying a UPS? 

[Carla_Birch 116]

Nope, it don’t support resume after lose of power.
 

A good UPS is the best way forward, if you lose power you need to pause the print ASAP so that the power usage is much lower or else your UPS will not last long.

 

The problem with a memory based resume feature is if the printer is to lose power that means your heated bed will cool and prints can become free, power comes back on and printer restarts and you end up with a big mess and a failed print. With a UPS you pause ASAP what keeps just the heated bed going and keeps the print fixed to the build plate, also gives you more back up time as power usage is lower when you pause, then you got to hope you get power back before the UPS runs out.

 

A good UPS also protects the printer from any power dips or spikes that could damage it and can also crash a printer where a resume feature would not work if a power dip/spike happens to crash a printer.

 

Not sure on the S3 power usage but with the S5 you want a UPS that does over 500 watts because when running it hits near on 500 watts at times. You would also want around 1000 va because that gives you a number of minutes on a power cut with the printer running to get to it and pause it.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Carla_Birch

[donogh 2]

Thank you for the detailed reply Carla, much appreciated. I'll check out UPSs in that case. The S3 uses 350W, will probably go with 1000va anyway!

[Carla_Birch 116]

1 hour ago, donogh said:

Thank you for the detailed reply Carla, much appreciated. I'll check out UPSs in that case. The S3 uses 350W, will probably go with 1000va anyway!

Just keep in mind that va and watts is not the same thing, You need a UPS that can cope with the peak watt usage of the printer but i would defo also get one with a high va as that gives you more time that hopefully your power will come back on from.

 

What would be real nice is if one day a printer could work like a computer and when you plug the usb of the UPS into the printer, any power cut also put the print into pause mode.

[Carla_Birch 116]

 

That's my UPS running with my S5 right now, if i recall it's 540 watts it can cope with and was 900va. I get a peak of 507 watts.

 

Another plus is some plug into computer with USB and you can see just how much power you are using a hour/day what can help you with pricing running costs if you sell anything you print.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Carla_Birch

[donogh 2]

Very cool! One more thing for the 3D printing shopping list 😆